An IP address is assigned by a provider or the like to a user terminal That is connected to the Internet. As a technique to identify the location region of an unknown user from the IP address, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technique that identifies a region to which an access point having the IP address assigned to the user terminal belongs. Specifically, the region to which the access point belongs is identified using a database in which regions corresponding to access points and IP addresses are associated with each other.
Note that, however, in recent years, use of the Internet through a broadband connection such as optical fiber (FTTH), wireless LAN (e.g. Wi-Fi) and ADSL, not a dialup connection to an access point, has become mainstream.